


Scherzo

by NeverwinterThistle



Series: Fort Frolic Redux [1]
Category: BioShock
Genre: Gore, M/M, Musicians, Pre-Bioshock 1, Unhealthy Relationships, animal cruelty, brief mentions of electrocution, dubious consent in chapter 6, warning for copious amounts of Sander Cohen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-12 05:17:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/pseuds/NeverwinterThistle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What goes up must come down: a rising star, a rising city. Rapture leaks, and Fort Frolic is for forgetting. Come bathe in the spotlight. We're all drowning here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

He is young (painfully so, the adolescent genius with his gangly limbs, freckled face and bony hands that creep spider-like across the keys; they praise him and he stutters, trips on his thanks and dreams he hears them laughing) but the music unearths depths within him. They yawn like pits in unexpected places. The closer he stands, the louder the call. A summons, an invitation; a seduction in sonata form. It leaves him helpless.

 

Kyle didn't come to Fort Frolic for epiphany, or metamorphosis, and certainly not out hero worship. He saved up the cost of a ticket from the coins people left in his tip jar after a night of playing at their pub, but it wasn't something he did out of love. Rapture as a whole worships Sander Cohen, but Kyle Fitzpatrick is singular, and the name means very little to him personally. What do the Big Names matter, if he's still struggling to afford a place somewhere other than Apollo Square? What do great masters matter to a starving artists anyway?

 

"Go," his mother told him, and laid the flyer down in front of him so he couldn't pretend to not have heard her. "There's a matinee performance, go buy yourself a ticket. You can't spend your life playing shanties for drunks, that won't get you nowhere. You need to aim higher. Go see how the rich people do it, maybe something'll rub off."

 

"But you _like_ the shanties," he protested, and received a cuff around the head for his trouble.

 

"Go better yourself," she said, tapping the flyer again to make sure her point was getting across. "Shanties are nice, but you should have more at your age. Proper, _classic_ music. Ask around, maybe someone'll teach you."

 

So here he is. Leaning on a wooden bar at the very back of Fleet Hall's auditorium (shockingly sized, like nothing _he's_ ever played in before. He wondered for a while how this Cohen fellow could possibly fill the space with his music. Surely no-one could be good enough to hold the attention of that many people), packed in like a sardine on all sides. Actual seats cost enough to feed him for a week, but someone with a good head for business worked out that they could make a little extra on fares if they gave people a plank of polished wood to lean on and sold the spaces at a discounted rate. Kyle has to admit that it's clever, even as he curses them for costing him his hard-earned tips.

 

Cursed, past tense. Right up until the curtain lifted and the music started; things are different now. Nothing matters but the music.

 

It's Cohen himself at the piano, apparently, and he's nothing like what Kyle imagined (because of course they don't bother pasting the posters for his records up in Apollo Square, not like they do in Fort Frolic). Heavy makeup, even for the stage; he walks with a prance to his step and exaggerates his bows so the audience will applaud longer, even before he starts playing. Not Kyle's type at all, except that he somehow manages to be _more_ that the rest of his orchestra. Charm, maybe, or some sort of magnetism; whatever it is, it keeps Kyle applauding with the rest until his hands begin to sting.

 

And then he plays. The results are nothing short of catastrophic.


	2. Exposition

Seven days later and Kyle is still hanging around Fort Frolic. He drifts in and out of the clubs and casinos, raking in more loose change from an hour or so of playing than he normally would in an entire night. It should make him happy. He should use his good fortune to buy a better jacket and a silk tie, so Eve's Garden will hire him on a few nights a week. It's what his mother wants.

 

He can't seem to focus. The notes ring hollow and his mistakes blare like foghorns, because now he knows what _real_ music is, and he's very much afraid it might be destroying him. Devouring him.

 

It doesn't help that Sander Cohen is everywhere in Fort Frolic. His voice on the radio; singing, endorsing Ryan's politics, charming interviewers. His name on everyone's lips and splashed across the walls at every corner Kyle turns. His presence is _everywhere_ ; the journey back home to Apollo Square in the early hours of the morning feels like a separation.

 

The ache is pathetic and eventually Kyle loses patience with his own cowardice. _What's the worst that could happen_? he asks himself, and, _Why not give it a try?_ He repeats the thoughts until they drown out the others ( _who is this man, and what has he done? why am I no longer enough? why would he give a damn about a stranger from the poorest district in Rapture? why not just go home?_ ) and he can't wait any longer.

 

On the seventh night after the concert, Kyle finds himself in Fleet Hall once again. Though morning might be more accurate; he isn't actually sure what time it is, only that midnight was a while ago, and the folks at Pharaoh's told him Cohen often doesn't retire until an hour or so before dawn. And he's sometimes to be found in a little room up the stairs from the entrance hall, where he does mysterious things and emerges with new music in hand.

 

_What harm could it do?_ Kyle asks, but there is no response to that aside from _go and see for yourself_.

 

His heart sinks with every step he takes, but in his mind he knows that this is the hardest climb, the bravest thing he will ever attempt. If he leaves Fort Frolic again, he wants it to be with either rejection or jubilation ringing bell-like in his soul. And heartbreak is only another source of inspiration, after all. If all else fails he can at least milk it for a new song or two. Something to make the drunks cry and tip more generously. He knows how to play his customers.

 

Kyle's hands shake when he taps on the door, and the muffled, "Yes, yes, come in!" almost makes him turn and run. Almost. Would have, if he wasn't already pushing the door open and creeping his hesitant way inside.

 

Wonders hang on the walls; works of dazzling, dizzying art that seem to shift at the corner of his eye; masks with golden veins and hollow sockets that stare. Costly, beautiful things. Kyle doesn't look at any of them. Later he won't even be able to remember what colour they were.

 

"Well now," says Sander Cohen. Perched at his desk with a sketchpad in hand and charcoal smearing his long fingers, but he tilts his head and pins Kyle in place with a single raised brow. "Aren't you a pleasant sight for the long, lonely evenings. I'd assume you were a remarkably thoughtful gift from an admirer, but in those clothes...no, they won't do at all. Not a reporter either, or you'd have been jabbering questions at me already. Look at you, twitching like a rabbit. Where _could_ you have come from?"

 

And Kyle finds his words, his planned speeches and practiced gestures, have fled into their burrows and refuse to come out. _I dreamed about this meeting,_ he thinks. _Every night until I could make myself come here. Sometimes I'd arrive and you'd be waiting for me; you'd know me already, maybe you saw me at the concert. You'd asked around and uncovered my name, and you were waiting. Other times you didn't know me, but you were willing to; you linked your arm through mine and walked me to that piano on the stage, and there you sat me down and said, "impress me." And I did. Every time, I did._

It wasn't supposed to go like this. "Um," he begins. He can feel his face begin to heat. "From Apollo Square? I'm not a- a reporter, I just wanted," his voice falters as Cohen lifts the sketchbook, flips to a fresh page and begins to draw.

 

"Hold still," he says briskly. "If you insist on being so skittish, I'll have no choice but to immortalise you as a twitchy little rabbit. You'd suit the ears, I think. You have the freckles for them."

 

Kyle holds very still and tries to restrain the twitching. He can feel his efforts fail, but it doesn't really matter. Things couldn't possibly get any worse. "My name is Kyle Fitzpatrick," he offers. "I was at your performance last week, the one you wrote all the music for."

 

"Hmm. I didn't see you at the after-party, so I can only assume you occupied one of the cheap seats. If that jacket of yours is anything to go by...but go on, by all means. You enjoyed the performance?" Cohen's eyes are very dark. They flit from Kyle's face to his sketchbook and whatever work is currently taking shape under his hands. Given the rabbit comments, Kyle doesn't think he wants to see it.

 

He's not sure _enjoyed_ is the right word for what Cohen's music has done to him. Changes have been made, flourishing like new saplings- but the earth around their roots is bloody, and raw.

 

"It hurt," he says at last. Cohen's brow furrows slightly, and the charcoal pauses for a moment. "I've never felt anything so- powerful. I could almost have drowned in it." He thinks about going further, about trying to describe the places it cut him open, the reasons he didn't run before the first bar was finished. But where would he find the words? He is, in the end, just barely eighteen; the drunks and his mother are the only ones who have ever thought he might have talent. Dreams are one thing. Kyle doesn't dare ask outright.

 

Cohen lowers the sketchbook to his lap and blinks slowly. Whatever he sees in Kyle's freckles and the patches in his clothing, it's clearly worth a second look. "Quite the ear you have, young man. A twitchy little rabbit with an ear for genius; if only the cream of society shared your _understanding_. Such a shame I can't cut it out and bottle it up for the doubters. _Such_ a shame."

 

There isn't much he can say to most of that, so Kyle settles for, "I'm not a- a rabbit. Or a child. I have a name-"

 

"Yes, yes," Cohen says with a dismissive wave of his hand. "You all do, and somehow you expect me to learn each and every one. But my mind has a higher calling than the mundane details of your unnecessary existence, _young_ man."

 

"You don't know anything about me!" Kyle says, louder than he meant to. The urge to run is back, but he knows that if he obeys it then his chance is gone. If Cohen remembers him at all it will be as the rabbit-man who couldn't look him in the eyes for longer than a second. Whose voice cracked with nerves when he spoke.

 

Cohen lifts the sketchbook again, shrugging as he does so. "I know enough. As commodities go, your kind is plentiful and short on uses. The dreamer, the doe-eyed innocent hailing from some worthless, uncultured hovel. Your kind is easily moved, your admiration worth little. You understand nothing of _subtlety,_ or _technique_. I wash my hands of you. Get out."

 

The shift in tone from bored to outright hostile is sudden, but a part of Kyle was waiting for it (he's young, not stupid) and he bolts for the door like some frightened woodland animal (he can almost feel the ears). The stairs are worse on the way down. They seem to _want_ to trip him, as if he might make a better impression on Cohen as a bloody, broken mess at the bottom of his staircase. And maybe he would.

 

Kyle stops on the ground floor to rest his hands on his knees and breathe. He's not as fit as he could be, but this feels more like shock than overexertion. It wasn't supposed to be this way. He was supposed to leave his mark somehow, whether in his words or his skill...but of course, Kyle realises, he never even mentioned being a musician. Cohen's scrutiny blew it from his mind.

 

Instead of heading for the Metro station, Kyle turns right in the lobby and makes his way into the Fleet Hall auditorium. He tells himself there's no reason not to, that he can't possibly make things worse. Maybe Cohen will ban him from Fort Frolic for his troubles; the thought of never hearing him play again is a sickening one, but so is the thought of giving up. Ryan's always saying effort yields rewards.

 

Life doesn't really work that way in Apollo Square, of course.

 

The seats are empty; he makes his way down one of the aisles and hopes they stay like that. Bad enough that he's probably on his way to a permanent ban from Fort Frolic. He doesn't need an audience for it.

 

The piano sits where Cohen left it, abandoned and inviting. Kyle brushes his fingers over the keys and wonders if that counts as sacrilege. If it was his, he'd break the hands of anyone who touched it. It's different when he does it of course; this isn't idle curiosity, but rather an attempt at worship. At proving himself to be worth the maestro's time.

 

Cohen may feel differently. Kyle perches on the edge of the piano stool before he can change his mind, fixes his eyes on the keys and starts to play.

 

The song doesn't matter. It's a poor performance anyway (because every time he dreamed of this, somehow everything was perfect, and he never once considered that maybe bringing his sheet music along might have helped) and some parts he makes up entirely. The drunks in the bars and casinos he plays in would have applauded anyway, and maybe tossed him a few coins for his trouble; here the song feels like an insult. Too common, too _happy_. He improvises wildly but there is nothing of Cohen's grandeur in his playing, and Kyle skips straight to the brief coda when he can't take any more. His notes fizzle out into silence; he wishes he could take them back, cage them up and never let them loose again.

 

"Riddled with errors," says a voice behind him. Kyle doesn't turn.

 

"I usually have the sheet music," he admits. "Sorry."

 

"And you can read it?"

 

"Yes."

 

"You improvised a fair amount of the song, lowly, common thing that it is. Something you do often?"

 

"Sometimes. I just- I couldn't remember..."

 

Silence drags out, and Kyle considers fumbling for another of his favourites (the songs that bring light to his mother's dull eyes for an hour or so). But would it matter? He has nothing he knows by heart. In the end, all the others would be equally wrong, and then Cohen might become even angrier.

 

Kyle clenches his fists in his lap; when a hand comes to rest on his shoulder, he can't keep himself from flinching. "Sir-"

 

"Mister Cohen will be suitable. We have a very long way to go, and the road will not be an easy one. But, given time, it might be possible...well, we shall have to see."

 

_Given time_. Kyle finds himself possessed with a sudden, suicidal desire to leap off his seat and throw his arms around the other man. A chance was all he really asked for, and now it seems as if Cohen means to give it to him. It feels like something out of a dream. "Thank you," he says fervently; he'd say more, _so much more_ , but he's made enough of a fool of himself for one day.

 

The hand leaves his shoulder and Kyle feels a brief stab of regret at the loss.

 

"Come away from there, now," Cohen says; Kyle slides reluctantly off the piano stool and steps away from it. "You have a great deal of natural talent, but that alone is no substitute for skill. You are an insult to the instrument, young Fitzpatrick, and I do not mean to let that slide. Together, we will mould you, _shape_ you, and someday you will emerge from your chrysalis and show us all your true colours. The journey will  be painful. I will settle for nothing less than perfection, and you will _give_ that to me, if it means you sacrifice everything else to do so. Art is a cruel and demanding mistress; she accepts nothing less than everything."

 

"Yes, Mister Cohen," Kyle says. This time he makes himself meet the other man's eyes, fever-bright in his thin face. _The light of passion_ , he thinks. _I'll burn that brightly too, one day. He'll show me how._ _He remembered my name._ "I'll do anything you ask of me."

 

"Of course you will." Turning away, Cohen waves a hand towards the exit at the back of the hall. "Return to whatever slum you've been wasting your talents in. It will take me a day or so to find you lodgings somewhere more _suitable_ , and after that the adventure will truly begin. Come and find me here in two days' time."

 

"Yes, Mister Cohen. Thank you, sir," Kyle says again, but the man has vanished into the wings.

 

Kyle goes home. When he next returns to Fort Frolic, Cohen greets him with a smile, and refers to him as, "Young Fitzpatrick. My newest disciple."

 

Weeks later he finds the sketchbook, tossed aside on the desk in Cohen's Fleet Hall office. Kyle flips through the sketches with no small amount of trepidation; he has begun to understand that, as with his music, Cohen's art is never simply beautiful. It is jagged, sharp like shattered glass, and it cuts beholder and subject alike.

 

It's just a sketch. A young man with wide eyes that refuse to meet the viewer's directly, whatever angle the paper is tilted at. His fringe is untidy, his ears stick out; Cohen could have found a thousand better looking men in Rapture alone, and all of them more suited to modelling. But while his ears fall short of an aesthetic ideal, they're human. Not a rabbit's ears, not a laugh at Kyle's expense. Just a sketch. It's strange to see himself like this. Implications of permanence, a desire to hold, to _keep_.

 

He touches the paper and feels his cheeks burn. He is _flattered_.

 

This is not his first mistake; it is, however, the beginning of an end.


	3. Development

The auditorium is empty again, its seats a looming void at his back. There is an ache in his neck, his wrists, the base of his spine; he last saw his mother three months ago. Or is it four? How the days blur, in his pursuit for perfection.

 

Kyle lets the last few notes trail off and keeps himself in place through force of habit, though he's desperate to stretch. That would be unprofessional. Audience or not, Cohen doesn't stand for displays of weakness from his favourites.

 

He waits in silence for judgement; as ever, Cohen doesn't leave him there for long. "Your tempo is all over the place _yet again_ ; is it so difficult for you to follow the music? Are your instructions not directly in front of you? I know they are, I wrote this piece myself. Why do you persist in _butchering_ it? You're an artist, Fitzpatrick, not some hack with a cleaver and a dead swine to dismember!"

 

"Sorry-"

 

"Not good enough. Apologies will not mend your atrocity; only practice will achieve that, and clearly you aren't doing enough of it. Move." Kyle slides off the piano stool at Cohen's sharp gesture, and the other man takes his place. "Now pay attention. Duh duh, duh _duh_ , follow the music, let it _flow_ through you like an electric current! Now isn't that a thought? I may have a need for it later, don't let me forget. Duh duh _duh_ , do you see?"

 

"I'll do better next time, Mister Cohen," Kyle swears. He means it too, but exhaustion creeps into his voice and puts a slump into his shoulders. He should hide it; Cohen's temper is...volatile, often unpredictable, and he oscillates between irritation and solicitousness seemingly at random where Kyle is concerned. As he should. The mistakes are always so stupid, things he should know to avoid. It's his own fault for letting his teacher down. "I'm trying."

 

"Of course you are." Cohen's voice is silk and honey when he aims to charm. "You make it so very easy to forget that you lack a proper education, a proper _grounding_ in the basics. Not your fault, dear boy, not at all. You must forgive me if ever I am short with you. I only want what's best." His hands are as soft as his voice, gentle where they reach to fluff Kyle's hair up. The anger from a minute ago has vanished. In its place is the kindly tutor, the patient scholar leading his faltering student on the road to enlightenment.

 

Kyle has seen the anger return with equal suddenness; Cohen can go from soothing to spitting acid in seconds, but his more violent outbursts are only ever aimed at others. The doubters, the sceptics, the ones who don't deserve his genius anyway. Never at Kyle himself. He takes a certain pleasure in that.

 

"Look at you, dead on your feet, you poor thing" Cohen says sympathetically, brushing Kyle's fringe from his eyes. "I suppose it is getting late. Are you sleeping properly? The apartment is all to your liking?"

 

_The nights get lonely_ , Kyle thinks. He'll never actually say it, of course, or even hint at something so completely inappropriate, but the thoughts come whether he wants them or not. Hero worship is one thing, and he certainly worships Cohen, but all the same...

 

He aches. Devours Cohen's records and spends willing hours amongst his paintings in the hopes that it will bring him somehow closer to the man. That it will make him somewhat less of a mystery. Does anyone truly understand Cohen? The cryptic, ever-changing _inspirations_ and the muse that seems to bring him more pain than joy; genius may be a wonderful thing, but to Kyle's eyes it seems more trouble than it's worth. Maybe because he doesn't understand. It puts his mentor ( _his saviour, his incomprehensible idol_ ) on a pedestal he can't hope to reach. And while admiring him is all well and good, Kyle is _eighteen_ and wrestling with baser instincts he still can't control.

 

At least he knows better than to voice them. "Everything's perfect, Mister Cohen, thank you. I'll do better tomorrow. I'm sorry for disappointing you." He can fit in a few more hours of practice back at his apartment before he collapses from exhaustion, and then maybe another in the morning, if he gets up earlier than usual. There will never again be an opportunity like this; he is well aware of how many musicians in Rapture would kill to be in his position. He can't afford to have Cohen think him lazy.

 

But it seems his mentor is feeling lenient today. "Oh, don't worry about tomorrow. Take a day to refresh your mind; the muse should be treated as a delicate flower, and nourished with due care. One mustn't put her under an excess of strain. And I myself will be away from Fort Frolic for the day on urgent business. People to see, business to conduct...charity work is so very time-consuming, don't you think? But it is all to the greater good in the end."

 

"Charity work?"

 

"A worthy pastime for those of us blessed with a higher intellect and insight into the secrets of humanity, yes." Cohen abandons his efforts to give Kyle's hair some semblance of tidiness and settles for tugging his collar a bit straighter. "Nothing you need concern yourself with just yet; Rodriguez is well trained to assist in this sort of thing."

 

"Oh." Some of his disappointment (not jealousy. Never jealousy, not when there are others around to witness it) must show; it earns him a chuckle from Cohen.

 

"Smile, young Fitzpatrick," he says. "Your talents lie in a different direction to his, and you are no less valuable for it. Come now, _smile_!"

 

He does. Kyle can never bring himself to refuse Cohen his requests, and what harm is there in that? He wants to see his disciple happy, flourishing under his tutelage. Anything less would be ungrateful. "Smile!" Cohen tells him, the first time he performs in public (a short piece to a small audience; he comes on stage unintroduced and serenades them briefly while they take their seats. Cohen is the main event, and nobody ever learns Kyle's name. It's better this way, he is told. Fame is best when warmed to slowly, if he doesn't want to burn out in the middle of his ascent).

 

"Smile!" Cohen tells him when he is introduced to his brothers in art. Kyle fumbles their names and forgets them almost immediately, and the three men either hide their laughter or show it openly, according to their natures. ("He's cuter than a sack full o' puppies," says the lanky one with the arrogant eyes, "You sure he's legal? Looks more boy than man to _me_. Not like it matters, though, if you're just gonna corrupt him anyway.")

 

"Smile!" Cohen says, before shouldering through the party guests in the direction they saw Andrew Ryan go. Kyle tries to follow, but quickly finds himself adrift in a sea of silk gowns and expensive suits. There is no one in sight that he recognises; that, at least, is no surprise. His contacts in _society_ consist thus far of Sander Cohen himself and the three disciples who still can't look at him without ill-concealed smirks. He imagines himself clinging to one of them for the party's duration and recoils in humiliation. No. No, he has to be better than that.

 

A waiter swans past, drinks tray in hand. Kyle steps back to avoid him- and bumps into another guest. "I'm so sorry-" he begins, but the woman waves off his apology.

 

"Oh, look who it is. A precious, shining gem from Cohen's private collection. What an honour." She wears diamonds at her throat, sparkling under the chandeliers. Her earrings must be half the size of Kyle's palm. But it's her voice that captures his attention; sweet, liquid, rich like chocolate. She looks him up and down disdainfully. "Yes, I can see how you _would_ be just his type. You went to him with noble ideals, I'd bet. Didn't we all? But those don't last long down here, and certainly not around someone like Cohen."

 

"Mister Cohen has been very kind to me-"

 

" _Mister_ Cohen is a pretty little bird Ryan keeps carefully caged," the woman says. "People like his songs and his colourful plumage, so they don't pay attention to the things his master does. Ryan knows this. And one day Cohen too will realise just how little he's actually worth to this city."

 

The words hit him like a bucket of icy water; for a moment all he can do is gape. Then the shock passes, and in its place is anger. "I don't believe this," Kyle snaps. "Any of it. You're a liar, a- a _doubter_!"

 

She laughs in his face, diamonds flashing mockingly around her slender neck. "My, what a good little parrot's parrot you are. You know your script by heart. Cohen must be so _very_ proud. And speaking of the devil- good evening, Sander! Enjoying the party? Or are you too busy bending over for Andrew Ryan?"

 

"Miss Culpepper. A pleasure, as always." The look on Cohen's face suggests quite the opposite. "I see you've met my newest-"

 

"Harem boy?" Anna Culpepper gives another airy laugh. "Oh yes, I've very much enjoyed the young man's company; it's so rare to run into someone who can survive extended periods of time in your presence without corroding around the edges. He's very charming. _Do_ take care of him, won't you? I might want to sing a song about him some day."

 

The party is over after that; Kyle doesn't bother to hide his relief, though he regrets it the next day, and the one after that. It's an entire week before Cohen's frosty demeanour thaws, and he goes back to treating Kyle with his usual absent-minded fondness. Kyle silently vows to avoid Miss Culpepper like a disease from then on. The critics say she is talented (he _tries_ to avoid these glowing reviews, but they always show up where he least expects them; someone starts leaving newspapers on his piano seat, open to articles about _her_ , and if his eyes skim the content before he can stop himself, it's hardly his fault). It seems the woman leaves an impression wherever she goes; much like Cohen, though Kyle knows better than to make the comparison out loud.

 

He keeps his head down and suffers the acid remarks and the biting critique of his clumsiness, his inadequacy, and his failure. He practices and he apologises; eventually Cohen forgives him for his unknowing betrayal at the party. Sooner than expected, even, or at least sooner than the grumpy Finnegan predicted. Kyle basks in that, a little. He finds he rather enjoys being an exception where Cohen is concerned. And he is; he knows he is. Cohen himself said so.

 

"Does he tell you you're his favourite, kitten?" Cobb asks one day. Over at the bar, Rodriguez gives a hoarse laugh and downs half his drink in one go. "Ah, bless him, look how red he's goin'. Bet he thought it was some great secret, like he was something _special_. Poor, stupid little cat. We're all his favourites when he wants somethin'."

 

They do this, sometimes. Gather to talk and drink (though Cobb always passes Kyle a glass of fruit juice with a cheeky grin and a comment on his age. And Kyle will scowl and sulk until Rodriguez reaches over to spike his drink for him). There's still teasing, though less than before, and not all of it aimed at Kyle. They have their own jokes, well-worn and trotted out when the evenings get quiet. Rodriguez and his ever-present bottles of liquor; Finnegan's wrinkles; Cobb's humble position at Rapture Records (that he chose, unwilling to devote himself completely to a life of practice and perfection. "Everyone needs a break," he says, and Rodriguez adds, "from Cohen" in a hushed mumble, and that's as far as the conversation goes).

 

Kyle supposes he's growing fond of them, and them of him. They certainly pry into his life in distressingly familiar ways. In hindsight, he should have known better than to mention Cohen's offhand comment to men who are, essentially, rivals. He hadn't meant to say anything about it. Just keep it close, and let it warm him like embers in a fireplace. Like a hand on his shoulder as he plays.

 

_You're doing well, young Fitzpatrick. I confess, it's been a long time since I saw anyone with your dedication and ability to bend the keys to your every innermost desire. Men would murder for those hands of yours, and who could blame them? I was very wise when I chose to pluck you up from the common masses. If ever I am to name a protégé, I wouldn't be surprised to find it was you._

 

Kyle shifts uncomfortably in his seat and tries not to look anyone in the eyes. It's none of their business. The things Cohen says, the way he says them...that's nobody's business at all. Other people would only cheapen the magic.

 

"Word to the wise," Finnegan says on Kyle's other side. "It don't count if he says it while you're playing. It don't count if he says it while he's painting you. It really don't count if he says it while he's _fucking_ you." Kyle jerks, spilling half his drink across the bar, and Finnegan snorts with laughter. "You gotta harden your heart if you want to stick around; give him whatever he wants and take whatever wisdom he feels like dishing out, but don't go believing that he actually likes you."

 

"Cohen wants what Cohen wants," rasps Rodriguez; Cobb lifts his glass in solidarity. "Yes he does," he agrees. "But there's a lot he can teach you. Soak it all up, but don't let him get inside your skin. Don't let him really _see_ you. You're young, and Cohen is temporary. The only thing of his you want to keep is his lessons. Nothin' else."

 

_Too late for that_ , Kyle thinks grimly as Finnegan pats him on the back a shade too hard. _And you're wrong, all of you. You don't understand. It isn't like that._

 

In his defense, he is young and has never been in love before. He sees, but he does not understand.

 

Rapture has no time to spare for the innocent.


	4. Variation

Another sell-out performance. Another standing ovation, another deluge of requests for encores. Roses in the dressing rooms and crowds of people begging for autographs; it was a good night, as they all are, and Cohen is furious.

 

"Duck for cover," Finnegan mutters as he passes Kyle on his way out. "Sander's having a moment, stay the hell away from Cohen's Collection if you like being alive."

 

"But the show was fine!" Kyle says to his retreating back. "I heard a few wrong notes from the violinist, but nothing serious. What's the problem?"

 

"Ryan didn't come. Again."

 

"Oh."

 

And therein lies the problem. Andrew Ryan has an attention span to match Cohen's own, where art is concerned, and his attendance at Fort Frolic is patchy of late. Apparently it's not the first time this has happened. Cobb says (and Kyle glances over his shoulder instinctively; there's no way of knowing where Cohen is at any particular time, and the man has an uncanny way of guessing exactly what's on Kyle's mind) that Ryan sees no difference between Cohen and his latest romantic conquest. He's around when he's interested, and absent when not- and the excuse is always his busy schedule. He'll be back, of course, but until then Cohen is left playing the part of scorned mistress. Predictably, he's not best pleased.

 

Cobb phrases it all differently, but Kyle doesn't share his apparent death wish.

 

Or maybe he does. Exiting Fleet Hall (head bowed, half his face concealed behind a scarf so the crowds won't corner him), Kyle makes for Cohen's Collection. Finnegan has a point; it's risky to approach their master while he's in one of his Moods. But Finnegan isn't Kyle, and that makes all the difference. Cohen has never hurt him. He promised he never would, and Kyle believes him.

 

"Mister Cohen?" he calls into the dimly lit entrance. "Are you there? Is everything alright?"

 

Cohen's voice comes from the main room, high and distracted. "Is that you, Fitzpatrick? Come in, come in..."

 

He's at his easel, paints spread haphazardly on the table nearby. None of them seem to have reached the canvas itself, however; Cohen stands in front of it, chewing on the end of a clean brush. He doesn't turn as Kyle enters.

 

"Such potential there is to be found in a virgin canvas," he mutters. "The unsullied purity, the frail eggshell of innocence... And I, as the artist, must bear the burden of defiling it. If it has dreams, _desires_ , I will tear them apart, and mould the bloody clay into a masterpiece. And then, when it is done, I alone will suffer the guilt. Alone, again." With a sudden movement, he throws his paintbrush at the wall, where it splinters and falls to the floor. "Damn you, Ryan. All I have given you, all I _could_ give, and it's never enough, is it? Damn you. And me as well, for letting it happen."

 

 _What's so special about Andrew Ryan, anyway_ , Kyle thinks, but knows better than to say. He's always assumed the draw lay in power, in Ryan's status and fame. None of which explains the raw edge to Cohen's voice, or his red-rimmed eyes. Suddenly, inappropriately, Kyle feels a surge of jealousy.

 

"It's not fair," he says, his voice ringing loud in the otherwise silent room. "You're a _genius_ , sir, you deserve better than just being...abandoned like this. It's wrong of him."

 

Cohen reaches for the green glass bottle on the table at his elbow. "Wrong indeed. And you see how I suffer for it? I couldn't even stomach watching the full performance, once I knew he didn't plan to attend. What a waste. What a sickening _waste_ ," and he throws his head back to take a large gulp of whatever the bottle contains.

 

Kyle goes to pick up fragments of paintbrush from the floor. It seems wisest to give Cohen a moment to gather himself, and a splinter isn't likely to improve his mood. When he returns from tossing them in the outside rubbish bun, Cohen is back at his easel, a new paintbrush in hand.

 

"Such a shame," he says, waving at the canvas. "I'd planned to paint him; he has always taken pleasure in my work, and more so when he is the subject. I can't say I blame him. It is a heady thing indeed to find oneself the subject of a muse's attentions. But now he has left me, and I am hollow, and uninspired."

 

"You could paint me," Kyle says before he can stop himself. In the silence that follows though, he finds that he likes the idea. "I'm here, and I'll never leave you." The declaration is more impassioned than he'd meant it to be, but no less honest. Cohen must have noticed by now. He has to be aware of the way Kyle feels, the things he'd _do_ , if he was asked- but of course, when the competition is Andrew Ryan, anyone else is bound to fall short.

 

He thinks about making it easier, telling Cohen to just _pretend I'm him, if it'll help_ , but in the end his pride outweighs his desire to sooth his mentor's wounded feelings. So he waits for Cohen to make up his mind, and prepares to duck if the response is another thrown paintbrush.

 

"You're a poor fit for what I had in mind," Cohen says at last. "The shape of your shoulders won't match the pose I had picked out, and as for your posture..."

 

His tone says _convince me_ , and Kyle does his best. "Find a new pose, then. Sir. You know I don't have a problem with sitting still, you've seen how much time I spend at practice every day." _I'm dedicated_. _I work so hard for you, please, let me prove I'm worth the trouble_.

 

"It will take time before I find one that suits me," Cohen says, falsely grudging. "Your neck is pleasing, we must make sure to showcase that. And your hands...yes, your hands are the intermediary through which you channel your art, and to ignore them would be the worst of insults."

 

 _Success_. Kyle hides his giddy smile and says, "Anything you want."

 

"I would need you cooperative, you realise," Cohen tells him. He beckons Kyle closer, clasping his chin in one hand and tilting his head to study his profile. His breath smells of alcohol, and Kyle feels another sting of anger at Andrew Ryan.

 

"My pleasure, Mister Cohen." It's the right thing to say; Cohen's thumb strokes the line of his jaw, and Kyle feels his breath catch. _Finally_.

 

"I would need you..." Cohen pauses for effect, his eyes drifting down Kyle's shoulders and chest, the shape of his hips. "Willing."

 

He is, of course. Has been since the start, and when Cohen tells him to strip, he does so with a bare minimum of hesitation. Lets Cohen pose him this way and that (sitting lewdly back to front on a chair; then more modestly, knees tucked under his chin and arms wrapped around them; leaning on the table; standing at the window; seated on a piece of canvas on the floor, cross-legged and exposed for all the world to see; then seated with his knees tucked under him, weight on one hand and flicking through his music book with the other. Cohen settles for that, at last, and begins to sketch). His skin heats where Cohen touches it. Not something he can hide, and Cohen's smug expression says that he hasn't failed to notice.

 

They work in silence for an hour or so, while Fleet Hall empties of its patrons and the volume from the casinos and pubs starts to rise. Still, Cohen says little other than an occasional, "Bow your neck further, Fitzpatrick- yes, just so, now hold that position", or "Your eyes are darting around like frantic little butterflies. Keep them _fixed_ to the music. It fascinates you. Show me." But the reprimands are few in number, and the touches come more frequently as time passes. Adjustments to the fall of his fringe, the curve of his spine. Too long spent on the play of light across one of his thighs.

 

When Cohen calls a halt, Kyle is grateful. He stands slowly, mindful of his goosebumps and the uneven red marks on his leg left by bunched canvas. There is no feeling whatsoever in one of his arms. He flexes his fingers slowly and winces.

 

Cohen is next to him all of a sudden, paint-splattered and cheerful and much too close. "Something wrong?"

 

"My arm's gone dead," Kyle says, "that's all. Nothing to worry about." But he lets Cohen take the numb arm in question, rub his skin and make sympathetic noises.

 

"Oh, you poor thing, you should have said! Next time we must remember to be more careful with you; you are fragile, I see it now. Not to worry, though. I have a great deal of experience in handling precious things. I'll be gentle with you," he purrs, backing Kyle up against the table.

 

And Kyle goes willingly. Finds a space between the paints and brushes and jars of water to perch, and wraps his legs around the backs of Cohen's thighs. A lewd gesture, suggestive of his intentions, but he'd never actually have the courage to ask. Cohen doesn't seem to mind; he chuckles, one rainbow-speckled hand stroking Kyle's thigh and the other tracing his lips with a fingertip.

 

"My, we are _eager_ , aren't we?" His knuckles brush across Kyle's inner thigh, and again when he feels Kyle shiver. "And I had you mistaken for a virgin."

 

"I'm not- um, overly...knowledgeable," Kyle admits. He parts his lips at the press of Cohen's fingers, resists the sudden urge to _lick_ them.

 

"But this is something you have thought of, is it? Do you think of me, Kyle, in the lonely nights? Do you _dream_..." and then Cohen is leaning in close to trail kisses up the side of his neck. Kyle tips his head, fumbling blindly with the buttons of the other man's dress shirt. His heart pounds; no doubt Cohen can feel it. Arousal curls, slow and heavy in the base of his stomach.

 

"I have a very active imagination, sir," he manages, before Cohen shoves him back to sprawl across the table.

 

It's his last lucid thought for the night.

 

Morning brings with it a share of surprises. Finnegan stops by and leaves a mug of coffee on his piano as he plays, and the look on the older man's face is an odd mix of respect and sympathy. Rodriguez slips him a shining silver flask of some unidentifiable liquor with a quiet, "Fuck, you're braver than me." He's gone before Kyle can demand an explanation; the flask ends up emptied into a nearby pot plant.

 

Silas Cobb comes to stand behind him in the middle of a particularly tricky bar. He leans in until his breath stirs the hairs on Kyle's neck (Kyle's fingers miss their mark, the notes coming out all wrong) and whispers, " _Whore_ ".

 

Hard to tell if he means it as a joke; he's smiling when Kyle turns, but Cobb is always smiling. "What?" he asks in the face of Kyle's indignation. "It's true. Join the club, sugar. It don't come with no shiny badge, but we have meetin's on the regular and drink until we don't care about any of it. You're cordially fucking invited to join us."

 

Oddly enough, it's the first time Kyle really thinks of them as family. "Am I? Does that mean you'll stop switching my drinks when I'm not looking?"

 

"Yeah. Why not." If there's an unpleasant twist to Cobb's smile, an edge to his otherwise faultless welcome, Kyle chooses to ignore it. He's not so naive as to think that Cohen is his now, or that he won't have to share the man's attentions with the rest. It's for the best; he's also not stupid enough to believe that he'd survive if Cobb decided he was a serious threat. They're better as allies, if shaky ones.

 

"Then I'll be there."

 

*

The bar is Rodriguez's idea, as it usually is, but the fight is a different matter altogether. _That_ particular honour goes to Cobb. As it usually does.

 

"Don't like the way that sax player's looking at me," Finnegan grumbles over his fourth (fifth? More? Kyle hasn't been counting) beer. "The way he's eyeing me up, like he wants to start something. If he don't quit that, I swear-"

 

"He's not looking at you," Kyle says, and cringes at the glare Finnegan shoots him. "What? He isn't."

 

"Yeah he is." Finnegan downs the rest of his beer and shoves the glass aside. "You know what I think? I think he knows who we are; maybe he's seen us on stage before, and he knows he's got nothing on any of us. I think he _wishes_ he was bold enough to say something. But he can't, so he poses and glares, and he thinks I'm just gonna stand for it."

 

Kyle looks to Rodriguez for help, but there is none forthcoming. He aims his appeal at a grinning Cobb instead. "He's not doing anything but playing. Do we really have to do this again? I have a morning practice session with Cohen, can't we just have a quiet evening, please-"

 

"Did you see that?" Finnegan interrupts. He lifts a hand to point at the unfortunate saxophone player with unnecessary drama. "Son of a bitch just laughed at me. Nobody gets to do that, you hear me? Nobody."

 

"How could he possibly laugh while-" Kyle begins, and then Cobb is standing, scraping his chair against the floor. "Oh, for...for _fuck's_ sake, Silas."

 

"Yeah, I saw it," Cobb says, ignoring him. His fingers curl around Finnegan's empty beer bottle, a loose grip that doesn't say he's considering throwing, so much as he's trying to decide who to throw it _at_. "The pianist too; look at him, sniggering. Bastard! Time we showed 'em how things get done 'round here."

 

He makes his throw before he finishes speaking, and then he and Finnegan are vaulting over the table and lunging to meet the disgruntled band members in open combat.

 

Kyle doesn't see any more of it; if he has learnt anything during his time at Fort Frolic, it's been to duck when the punches start flying. Cohen doesn't take kindly to black eyes and bruised knuckles. The piano isn't as much fun to play when his fingers scream with every note, and his mentor hovers with an air of ill-repressed annoyance. Better to wait it out and make it home undamaged. One of these days someone's going to get killed, and Kyle doesn't know what he'll do if it's one of them. Presumably Finnegan will sort that out. But what if he's the one to go first?

 

This is all Cobb's fault. It always is.

 

"Why does he _do_ that?" Kyle complains from his safe space under the table. In this racket he's unlikely to be heard by anyone, but something needs to be said, or people will think he _condones_ this behaviour. "He's not actually angry, why does he do it?"

 

"Bored," someone mutters up above him, and Kyle almost brains himself on the underside of the table.

 

"What?"

 

"Said, 'cause he's _bored_ , weren't you fucking listening? And 'cause Martin wants him to. He does it to amuse Martin. And himself too. Got nothing better around, so they just...do things. Start fights. It's funny." Something goes _thump_ , and Kyle pokes his head out into the open in time to see Rodriguez fumbling for his overturned glass. Some of his curses are really original; it's possible he makes them up himself. Comes from being a poet, maybe.

 

"Can you make them stop?" Kyle asks, sliding into the seat next to him. Over on the stage, Finnegan swings a punch and knocks the singer off his feet. He doesn't look particularly amused, but that's nothing out of the ordinary. And Cobb is... well, Cobb is Cobb. Loud and unabashedly violent, screaming endearments at his opponents and throwing glass bottles at their heads.

 

"Can't do that," Rodriguez says. He waves at the barkeeper, cursing again when the man ignores him. "Fucking typical. Attention span of a fruit fly, like all the rest. Useless. Can't make anyone do anything. Or...not do anything."

 

Kyle has a feeling he might be missing part of the conversation here. That happens around Rodriguez, even when he's making a serious attempt at sobriety for the sake of the adoring crowds. Sudden skips in the things he says, the things he feels. He never seems entirely happy to be himself. "Are you alright?" he asks gingerly, and leans back in his seat when Rodriguez fixes him with a blank stare.

 

"What do you think?"

 

They're spared an awkward silence by virtue of a beer bottle whizzing over their heads to shatter on the far wall. Something about the sudden violence of its _smash_ leaves Kyle reckless enough to press the issue. "You've been acting strange all evening. Worse than usual." He curses his choice of words, but it can't be helped; Rodriguez is the wordsmith among them, and Rodriguez can't speak without slurring, half the time. "What happened?"

 

For a moment he thinks Rodriguez isn't going to answer. The man's eyes are fixed on the stage, where bodies are starting to pile up and a majority of the bar's patrons seem to have joined the fight for the fun of it. There's no sign of Finnegan, but Cobb makes enough noise for the both of them, even over the screaming. They're probably alright.

 

"All for the best, he says," Rodriguez mutters. He shoves his spilled glass aside and thumps his head down into a puddle of beer. "But it's me that does the worst of it, all he ever does is stand around and smarm. Fuck him. Fuck all of them. I never wanted none of it." He inhales, chokes on beer fumes, and carries on anyway. "But he wants me to go along tomorrow and do it all again, like always, and I will, I'll- I won't do anything. Just whatever Cohen tells me. And they'll cry, they always do. I fucking hate it when they cry on me."

 

There's beer seeping into his hair, pooling under his nose and staining his collar. Kyle reaches over to try and tug his jacket out of the way, but it's too late. Rodriguez makes no move to help him. "I'm...I'm going to take you home now, alright?" Kyle says. "Hector? I don't understand what you're saying, and it's time to go home. Come on."

 

They've picked a good time for it; as they reach the door (Rodriguez half-draped across Kyle's shoulders, and for such a shadow of a man he still makes for an unwieldy burden), something behind the bar _explodes_ , and several shouts of "FIRE!" go up. Rodriguez trips on the doorstep and Kyle pauses to steady him. He glances over his shoulder as he does and meets a pair of bright eyes in a bloodied face. It's possible they belong to Cobb. Just in case, Kyle throws him a filthy look. They're going to have words about this tomorrow, and he sincerely hopes it's while Cobb is still nursing a hangover.

 

"'S not just the kiddies," Rodriguez mumbles, and Kyle drags his attention back to the staggering man.

 

"What did you say? Sorry, I was-"

 

"Cohen's word is law down here, tha's how it works. He's god. And he thinks we're not enough the way we are, he thinks his damn disciples gotta be something more'n human. He's gonna get us all Spliced up soon, you wait. He said so. Said we'd be better like that."

 

There's nothing _wrong_ with Splicing, of course. All the advertisements say it's perfectly safe, and Fontaine Futuristics wouldn't have released something without testing it first. Everyone will be doing it soon, once the cost drops. For the moment though, it's still just a looming possibility, like a wave no one can believe is actually approaching. Fireballs you can hold, muscles you don't have to work for, telekinesis and electricity and hypnosis...it still seems like a strange dream.

 

Kyle isn't surprised to hear that Cohen sees potential in the so-called Plasmids.

 

"He can't make you if you don't want to," Kyle says as reasonably as he can while fumbling them both through the Metro turnstile. It's blessedly quiet down here, where the shouting from Fort Frolic can't reach them. "Just tell him no. Why would you need it, anyway?"

 

"Can't tell Cohen 'no'." Rodriguez says. "Only Cobb tells him that, and hefucking _wants_ to Splice. Thinks it'll be fun. So we'll all have to, and that's that. Wish I could just- just _do_ something..." He mutters himself into silence and spends the rest of the trip glowering at the wall and ignoring Kyle's questions.

 

If he remembers any of it in the morning, he gives no sign of it, and then of course he vanishes off with Cohen on their mysterious 'business'. It's days before Kyle sees him again.

 

He's right about the Splicing; several weeks later, Cohen proposes it for the first time. Tells them it'll open up new possibilities, that it'll revolutionise everything they touch. Alone of the four disciples, Kyle gives him a tentative "no". And Cohen accepts it. Disappointed, of course, but he makes no effort to change Kyle's mind on the matter.

 

"I suppose it's better this way, for you at least," he says graciously. "You are my young protégé, of course, my sweet little lamb. Stay pure a while longer. It may be better for your image, and mine for that matter. Yes, a very good idea. And such a contrast! We'll dress you in white for the next concert, I think, and there must be a sort of angel motif about your appearance... Don't rush me; I'll think on it and let you know when inspiration strikes."

 

He'd have done it if Cohen had pushed. He'd do _anything_ Cohen asked, if only for the brief, warming light of his approval. To bask in knowing he pleases the man. Those are dizzying moments indeed, and would have been well worth the trouble of injecting himself with EVE and whatever Plasmid Cohen chose for him.

 

Still, he's glad he doesn't need to, though he doesn't yet know why. Life goes on; when the changes begin, he doesn't immediately notice. Very few people do.


	5. Collision

_Skree, skree, skree,_ go the knives; _twitch, twitch, twitch_ goes the rabbit in its cage.

 

"Today is a 'V' day, I think," Cohen announces. He lifts a blade to the light and squints at it. "Mph. Needs more of an edge. Something about the air down here is so very dulling. Dulls the knife, dulls the wits...dull, dull, _dull_ and boring. Not to worry though. We'll soon have things nice and lively once again. Where was I?"

 

"A 'V' day, Mister Cohen."

 

"So it is! Fetch me the subject, won't you? _Now_ , Fitzpatrick."

 

Kyle flees the lash of Cohen's tone as he would the strands of a whip. The cage opens easily, though his fingers fumble the latch and grip the shaking animal too hard when he finally gets a hold on it. _Don't want to go? I don't blame you._ But he drags it from its meagre shelter at last and carries it over to the table Cohen has cleared for it. "Here you go, sir."

 

"Hmm. Virtuoso, virile, vitriol. Hah! I'll show those heathens, with their quivering pens and inches of empty column space. They make their livings off scandal and sacrifice, but Sander Cohen doesn't dance to any man's tune but his own." Kyle is elbowed aside so Cohen can circle his new subject, frowning. "Thin. Too thin by far, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers. Ryan's patronage is not to be counted on these days. No. Well, I have other means, I suppose. _Vindicated_."

 

Kyle closes the empty cage, just to give himself something to do. He knows what comes next. It's not the first time, and probably won't be the last- but eventually it will end, as Cohen's muse flits to greener pastures. It's only a dumb animal. Worth little in the greater scheme of things.

 

He wishes Finnegan would stop finding ways to avoid this particular duty. He wishes Cohen would stop exchanging increasingly hysterical communications with Doctor Steinman. This isn't the kind of _art_ he signed up for.

 

"White, like a vestal virgin," Cohen pronounces over his rabbit. "And in my hands you will attain- _perfection_." The knife is lowered; the rabbit's fur begins to stain.

 

Pointedly shutting his ears to its squeaking, Kyle fixes his eyes to Cohen's newest canvas, his current work in progress. A 'self portrait', he calls it, and nobody's found the courage to argue it to his face, but...

 

Well, as long as it keeps him happy. Adjusting his cuffs, Kyle shifts restlessly and counts the passing of time until he can reasonably beg away for the sake of piano practice. He doesn't want to seem ungrateful. It's a privilege to watch Cohen work, one he should be thoroughly humbled by, and he is. He is. The rabbit twitches, and Kyle is _so_ grateful, appreciative of Cohen's generosity in allowing him to attend-

 

"Veins and vertebrae and viscera," Cohen sings under his breath. "My lovely, hollow vessel. I'm going to fill you up and stitch you back together, my precious doll. _Then_ we'll see who's doubting. Dum du-dum du-du-du-dum." The noises from the table are slick, slithery and grotesque. After a while, Kyle covers his ears and turns away. Cohen doesn't notice.

 

He doesn't know when it started. Not with the rabbits, though it would be simple enough to lay the blame at Doctor Steinman's door and leave it there to rot. A man of vision, Cohen calls him. A man of struggle, an _artist_ , as ill-appreciated as Cohen himself. A kindred spirit. But the changes started long before the correspondence between those two, and will continue after the inevitable jealousy sets in and shreds their makeshift friendship like tissue paper.

 

No. It started before that. It shows no signs of stopping. And Kyle never wants to see another rabbit for as long as he lives.

 

Cohen tires eventually (his hands a mess of clotted blood and nameless chunks of entrail, his shirt ruined) and steps away from the table. He is, as ever, dissatisfied, and Kyle thinks this might be the worst part of all. None of it is ever enough.

 

He passes Cohen a clean white towel to mop the sweat from his brow, and tries for his most supportive tone. "If it helps, sir, the invitations to your production at the Garden of Muses have been sent out, and donations are flooding in. The Rapture Tribune is calling it one of the year's most anticipated events. So...there's still hope for people."

 

"A very few, perhaps," Cohen admits. His fingers clench around the stained towel, wringing it violently. "No doubt dear Andrei will find some reason or other to absent himself, yet _again_. This Fontaine business is getting tiresome, but he just won't listen to my pleas... Still, I'll just have to make the evening an enjoyable one without him. You'll have an important role to play, Fitzpatrick," he adds, and Kyle feels a sudden surge of anxiety in his gut.

 

"I...will? You never mentioned-"

 

"Oh, it was going to be Silas, but I rather think you've earnt a treat, don't you? You may assist me in my creations; I have just the task for your expert hands. Something invigorating and unexpected. Shocking, you could say."

 

Kyle wants to sound grateful. He wants to sound excited, _inspired_ by Cohen's favour, but it's with no small amount of effort that he fights back nausea at his mentor's giggle. The sound is all wrong. He looks for signs of the man he has given everything for, but Cohen's face is increasingly masked by greasepaint and powder these days. Even his eyes seem somehow strange; they still dance, but their light is different. Fractured.

 

It doesn't matter. What _matters_ is being chosen to stand at Cohen's side while he creates great works for the most important people in Rapture (some of them, at least). When it could have just as easily been Cobb or Finnegan or Rodriguez-

 

"I will be absent again over the next few days," Cohen announces abruptly. "Donations are all very well, but it wouldn't do to risk falling short; never let it be said that Sander Cohen shows his guests anything less than the height of luxury. I trust I can rely on you to take care of things?"

 

"If you want me to," Kyle says. He hesitates, and finds that jealousy outweighs caution, if only just. "Will you be taking Rodriguez again? Only, I'm sure I'd be just as-"

 

"Don't argue with me, Fitzpatrick," Cohen says icily. He throws the towel aside, oblivious to the stains still smearing his forearms. "Have you always been so difficult? Chirp-chirp-chirping away, when I require _silence_."

 

"Sorry."

 

"As you should be. We have a great deal of work to do before the big day, and I will require obedience from all corners. I have an exacting temperament, and I cannot work under less than optimal conditions. Now, chop chop! I'll have you note perfect, if I have to wring it from you with my bare hands."

 

He vanishes in a puff of red smoke that leaves Kyle choking on a harsh ozone smell and gripping the stained table for support. Alone with a dead rabbit and an empty cage. Kyle swears under his breath, and then louder, just to fill the silence. Does anyone understand what's going on in Cohen's head these days?

 

He wants to understand. Maybe that's why it matters so much to him, unravelling the mystery of Cohen's disappearances. Days of absence, but he always returns smug and generous. And whatever image of Kyle Cohen presents to the audience (his protégé, naive and untouched by the depravity of common man. Totally inaccurate, as Cohen himself can attest to, but it's the image that matters where ticket sales are concerned) Kyle isn't actually stupid. Cohen goes away somewhere secret and comes back with money. Andrew Ryan's support is meagre and unreliable; certainly not a match for the maestro's expensive tastes.

 

The pattern repeats itself. Cohen goes, Cohen comes back. Rodriguez does too, except that he vanishes and nobody sees him for days afterwards. This too is normal. But the mystery grates, and Kyle has always been too inquisitive for his own good. In the end, he goes to the one person he can count on to tell him, if he asks the right way.

 

Rapture Records is the busiest store in Fort Frolic before evening. After that the bars and casinos open their doors and it's all fair game; not that Cobb cares. He loves the place, but it often seems that he loves defying Cohen more. It doesn't matter how successful the business becomes so long as it remains a thorn in his maestro's side.

 

Cobb overstocks Anna Culpepper, and gifts her records liberally to his friends. Kyle has a complete set of his own, stored in a box under his bed. He doesn't dare display them openly, but she's too good a musician to throw them away (and it's not really disloyal if he never bought them himself). That, and if he tried to get rid of them he'd only find them replaced with new copies.

 

Nobody defies Cohen quite like Silas Cobb.

 

It's too early to open, but Rapture Records' doors are unlocked, and he slips inside without trouble. One of the display windows is conspicuously empty of merchandise; no doubt Cobb means to fill it with something Cohen wouldn't approve of.

 

Kyle finds the man himself stacking records into piles on the shop counter. New ones, their cases still smooth and glossy, though not for much longer if he keeps throwing them around so carelessly.

 

"Hello," Kyle says, lunging for a pile as it starts to overbalance. "New delivery?"

 

"Christ, ain't you a clever one," Cobb says amiably. "Just hold that there, yeah?"

 

"I'm not your _assistant_."

 

He does it anyway though; it won't hurt to have Cobb feeling friendly towards him, and if he doesn't then the records will be left to spill across the floor. Kyle still remembers a time when records were a thing he'd only ever heard about. Never mind seen, _touched_. He holds his pile upright until Cobb makes room on the counter to split it up, and keeps his complaints to a minimum.

 

"I take it you were wanting somethin' from me." Cobb settles himself into his chair behind the counter, eyeing Kyle between piles of records. "You got that twitchy look about you. Go ahead, ask away; can't promise I'll oblige you, but I'll listen at least."

Kyle leans his elbows on the counter and gets to the point. "Cohen's 'business ventures', the ones he brings Rodriguez along for. What are they? Why the secrecy?" It's something he puts serious thought into, on those days where Cohen's presence is absent from his lessons, and every note feels just a little bit _hollow_ for missing him. He pines. And when he doesn't pine, he worries. "It's not...dangerous, is it?" Something changes in Cobb's expression, and Kyle feels his breath hitch. "It is, isn't it? Is he getting into trouble? If Mister Ryan isn't- I know he's not being as good of a patron as he used to be-"

Cobb laughs over him, completely unconcerned. "Wouldn't worry about it, if I were you. So it's a little shady, who cares? The man has to make a buck or two to keep _us_ nice and happy, and I can tell you right now his records ain't enough. I sell more Culpepper than Cohen, these days; don't tell him, poor bastard. Deserves better than people give him."

 

"But what's he _doing_?" Kyle pushes, in a way he wouldn't dare do with Rodriguez or Finnegan, let alone Cohen himself. Cobb is a little easier to talk to; cruel when the mood takes him, like all the rest, but at least he smiles the whole time. Somehow that makes a difference. "I've tried asking, but he tells me not to bother."

 

"So don't."

 

"I'm not! I won't have to if you just tell me. Why does he always take Rodriguez?"

 

Cobb gives him an odd look, the ever-present smile tugging at the corner of his lips. A little eerie, as if the whole world is a joke he doesn't plan on sharing. It's there when he works, when his eyes look right through his customers and off somewhere nobody else seems to see. It's there when he sings and on the rare occasions when Cohen shouts at him for improvising too freely. Kyle once saw him break a reporter's wrist when the man made a grab for Cohen's shoulder after a performance; he smiled then too, and also while he trod purposefully on the offending hand to make sure it was damaged enough to suit him.

 

Finnegan grumbles, Rodriguez drinks, and Cobb wears his dreamy smiles while bones crunch under his boot. Still, it's just possible he might be Kyle's favourite.

 

"You don't let up easy, huh? Hoping I'll let you in on why Cohen don't invite _you_ along on his little business ventures? You a jealous man, Kyle Fitzpatrick?" Cobb smirks and swats at Kyle's head with a copy of Taylor's _Dance of Rapture,_ until Kyle tugs it from his fingers and goes to shelve it for him. "Much obliged! Stick it wherever you fancy, the man's a hack. Not worth putting him on a prominent shelf, or anywhere people might actually find him."

 

"Answer the question or I'm putting him in the window display," Kyle tries. "It'll look like you're endorsing his music; you wouldn't want that, would you?"

 

He can't blame Cobb for laughing at him. The threat would have worked on Cohen, and it's been a while since Kyle cared to wheedle anyone else into doing things his way. He's rusty, and now he looks like an idiot.

 

"I ain't telling you where Cohen goes, sugar," Cobb says cheerfully. "Nice try."

 

Shrugging, Kyle hides the offending record at the back of the _T_ s, where it's least likely to be found. He doesn't think Cobb would do anything unnecessarily cruel if he stuck it in the window for all to see, but the _T_ shelf is closer anyway. "Why Rodriguez, then?" _Why not you, when Cohen likes you so much?_ remains unsaid between them, but the implication is there nonetheless. It's the thing Kyle finds strangest about the whole situation. Of all the companions to choose for mysterious business outings, why take the one who never leaves his apartment without a flask at his hip, and another in his coat pocket?

 

Cobb summons Kyle back to the counter with a crook of his finger and passes him another stack of new records. "Since you're bein' so helpful. And as to your question, it ain't that much of a mystery. Rodriguez has to go because Rodriguez was too slow to tell Cohen 'no' when he asked. Stupid son-of-a-bitch landed the job nobody else wanted, and now he's stuck with it. I hear the nightmares give him hell; none of my business, but there you go."

 

Jessica Charlene's new album gets a space on a display shelf, as does _Rapture Jazz;_ Jilian's _Melodies_ is relegated to the very back of the _J_ s. Cobb nods approvingly at Kyle's choices. Maybe they make him feel inclined to expand a little more, or maybe he meant to all along, but either way he leans back in his chair and continues. "Finnegan's too squeamish for the work, anyways, but it wouldn't bother me. Just can't afford to take more time off from the shop. Guess Rodriguez'll have to sort himself out. I keep telling him it's for the best; not like those girls got anywhere better to go, now Fontaine's places are all shut down." His smile widens. "Was I supposed to mention that? Whoops. Don't you go telling Cohen, now."

 

"He wouldn't do anything to you," Kyle points out, trying to process what he's being told. "The worst he ever does is shout at you, and you just shout right back."

 

He moves back to the counter for the next pile of records, something to buy himself time to think. As he reaches for them, Cobb tugs the box out of the way.

 

"Can't tell if you're actually that stupid, or you just don't want to see what's goin' on around you," he says. "But just so we're clear..."

 

 _Snap_ go his fingers, and Kyle finds himself going cross-eyed, staring at the flame floating inches from his nose. He can feel its heat on his cheeks, an improbable amount for something so small. There is nothing playful about the way it dances. If it touches him, it's going to hurt. It's going to _scar_.

 

"Don't," he says, and Cobb wiggles his fingers slightly. The flame grows in length until it threatens to set his fringe alight. "Silas, _don't_."

 

"Wasn't gonna burn you," Cobb says easily, but he extinguishes the flame with a wave of his hand. "You'll Splice up sooner or later; Cohen thinks it makes things more fun. And he's right."

 

"It just makes you frightening," Kyle snaps. He might be less upset about it if this was an isolated incident, but it's not. Rodriguez tosses fire around with horrifying ease, _juggles_ it when he's too drunk to care. Finnegan's started calling himself the _Iceman_ , and gives out chilling handshakes to anyone who makes the mistake of touching him. And Cohen...

 

Enough is enough. "Do that again and I'm not coming back," he says, though he'll regret the absence of Cobb's odd humour in his days, the way it balances out Cohen's more caustic moods. He's sick of being afraid around people he wants to trust. "I won't tell Mister Cohen what you said, there's no need to threaten. I never did anything to you."

 

"You never did," Cobb agrees. "And you could have done. Wish you'd stayed in 'Pollo Square, I really do; we're all wrong for you down here. We got sharp claws, and you're still just a kitten." He pushes the records in Kyle's direction. They're all Culpepper's, in preparation for the new release she has coming out next month. Not that Kyle's counting. He wouldn't know at all if Cobb hadn't told him in the first place, and he certainly doesn't intend to buy a copy. It won't matter though; he'll end up with one whether he wants it or not.

 

"Where do you want these put?"

 

"Window. It's what I cleared space for, they'll sell before you know it. You can stick 'em in purdy places on your way out."

 

Kyle gathers the records up and resigns himself to the fact that he won't be receiving an apology for his possibly-singed eyebrows and vaguely trembling hands. Not surprising; nobody apologises in Fort Frolic. He considers shoving them back at Cobb and telling him to shelve his own damn records, but the man busies himself with lighting a cigarette (without matches. Bastard), and it's not worth risking setting the shop on fire for the sake of a temper tantrum.

 

"So you just kick me out once I'm no longer useful? That's kind of you."

 

"You're late," Cobb tells him easily. "You want to stay, that's fine by me, but you can explain it to Cohen when he asks why you're missin' practice to drink buckets of coffee and listen to Miss Anna Culpepper all day long."

 

" _Damn_." He is late, and while Cohen is never on time, Kyle wouldn't put it past him to show up early on this one day. Life has a habit of doing this kind of thing to him. "Fashionably late" applies well enough to parties, but practice sessions are another matter entirely. He can't even blame Cobb for this; if he hadn't made a detour to Rapture Records to ask about Rodriguez-

 

"You gonna stick around, or get moving? Useless kid." Cobb's tone suggests that he doesn't care either way; looks like things are back to normal.

 

"You do realise I'm not actually a child, don't you?" Kyle asks, resigned, as Cobb waves him towards the door. "How many times do I have to say it before it sinks in?"

 

"Oh, I know, sugar." Cobb pulls another pile of records towards him, his eyes never leaving Kyle. The cigarette burns unnoticed between his fingers. "Believe me, I'm _real_ aware. Now get the fuck out of my store."

 

Kyle arrives late to practice, beating Cohen by a mere thirty seconds or so. His frayed temper must show through, because Cohen stops him several times for trivial mistakes, and finally slaps him about the head a bit too hard and asks him what the hell is wrong.

 

"Nothing, sir," Kyle says, as usual. Then, because he can't help himself, he adds, "Just Cobb being a bit strange earlier."

 

"Is that all? And here I was expecting some disaster of phenomenal proportions. Sabotage, plagiarism, unexpected venereal diseases, that sort of thing. Not Cobbsie's little _games_ , most of which, may I point out, amount to mere attention-seeking." Cohen reaches over Kyle's shoulder to turn his music back to the beginning. "Shall we start anew? Dismiss these trivial matters from your mind; you have other things to worry about, such as the punishments I will be forced to devise if you do not have this piece mastered by performance day next week. Again. And remember- _allegro_!"

 

It will be a while before he makes sense of Cobb's hint about the _girls_ , and longer still before he can bring himself to fully understand what Cohen's business ventures consisted of. When he does, he will look back on how easily he _erased_ his visit to Rapture Records that morning. He will look back, and wonder how much he chose not to understand.

 

Maybe it was just easier to forget.

 

Cohen's performance will later be remembered as an extraordinary event; critics rave, call it _visionary_ and _stupendous_ and _captivating_. These are the reviews Cohen carefully cuts out and leaves on Kyle's piano for his perusal. If there are others, he doesn't see them, and doesn't go looking. Cohen makes a point of forbidding it.

 

Kyle wouldn't have looked anyway. He can't stomach the thought that the evening might have been anything short of absolutely perfect. Necessary. Of some obscure value to its attendants, as Cohen assures him it was.

 

He hurt people.

 

Nobody important, nobody he knows the name of; nobody he'll ever recognise again, thanks to the masks Cohen made them wear. Laughter and sorrow, comedy and tragedy. A twisted rictus to cover their features, but their eyes were frantic and darting and much, much too human. Uncertain steps, unpractised movements. Amateurs, clearly. And Cohen was angry.

 

(He liked them better after, when their limbs jerked and jumped and they slumped like little ragdolls across the stage. Carried off on stretchers, both. Cohen turned to Kyle and ordered him to make a note of this lack of planning; next time, there would need to be a better way of removing them quickly, before his muse objected to the mess. Next time.)

It would be easy enough to blame Cohen for everything, but he can't. The orders were there but the choice was his, and he could have chosen differently. Cohen would have been disappointed, displeased, maybe even to the point of choosing a different assistant in future. Still, he could have refused.

_He pulls the lever; the dancers scream. But all he hears is Cohen's laughter, and after a moment he joins it with his own, shaky, offering. At last, they harmonise._

_And the next time he does it, it goes a little easier._


	6. Recapitulation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings have been updated, so maybe keep an eye on those.

Rapture falls like a row of dominos. One disaster after the next, and winding through them all are the smaller catastrophes. Unnoticed in the ever-expanding anarchy, but sharper nonetheless. Sometimes the needle hurts more than the club.

 

First come the riots.

_"Fitzpatrick!" Cohen shouts. "The stick!" Kyle pulls the lever wearily, and hauls the bodies out of sight as instructed. By now the chore is barely even onerous; when two new dancers are found to replace the failed batch, he doesn't even bother to look at them. They don't last long, and again, the stick._

_The gunshots start three hours later. By morning the streets are running with blood and his own contribution to Rapture's morgues seems small by comparison. Irrelevant. Ultimately forgivable. He tells himself this, and doesn't think about the matter again. He is innocent. He has to be._

A civil war is growing, and it bleeds the life from the theatres, clubs and casinos.

_The performance ends early, its seats barely a quarter full. Nobody lingers when it is done; no reporters, no critics, no one looking for an autograph or a conversation. Cohen shuts himself away in his office and Kyle wanders wherever his feet will take him. Predictably, he ends up outside Rapture Records. There are lights on inside; he pokes his head around the door and finds he's interrupted a gathering of sorts. Strangers, talking in groups or dancing in pairs to the velvet of Culpepper's recorded voice. Silas Cobb spots him lurking by the door and beckons him down imperiously._

_"My kittens," Cobb tells Kyle in a stage whisper, gesturing towards the guests. "They're a little dull right now, but just you wait. I'll pick the best and make 'em real purdy. Light 'em right up."_

_He lights a cigarette with a snap of his fingers; his eyes dance oddly in the firelight. Kyle agrees with him and leaves as soon as he can, his heart sinking. He doesn't know where the ache inside him comes from. He doesn't know why the scene scares him as much as it does._

_His mother vanishes somewhere into the depths of Apollo Square, and isn't heard from again; he barely has a thought to spare for her. They haven't spoken in years._

 

Ryan institutes a curfew; this, more than anything else, spells the death of Fort Frolic.

_The ceilings are leaking, puddles forming in corners and walls crumbling at the slightest touch. Half the stores are closed now, their owners vanished without a trace. But still, there are people. Wandering, lost-looking, aggressive when asked if they need directions. Flinching under Kyle's gaze and retreating to the shadows. Some try to strike him; he learns to stay away. To hide in his mentor's shadow. They won't come near Cohen: the wisdom of lunacy, maybe._

 

And behind it all, the madness. Unannounced and unacknowledged, it creeps through Rapture's people like a plague. No one calls it what it is until the doctors are too far gone to help. Spliced up to better themselves, and now driven to _cure_. To mend, recreate. To tamper. To break.

_"Mister Cohen, please..." It makes no difference; his protests will go ignored, as they have for a while now. The desk bites into his abdomen, jarring his thighs where it strikes, again and again. Kyle rests his cheek against the wood and holds in another plea. It doesn't hurt that much, anyway. And he wants this. He does. He promised this man forever._

_"Such a shame we didn't have the good Doctor Steinman take a look at you while he still had the time," Cohen tells him sweetly, only barely out of breath. He drags a sharpened nail down Kyle's back, tracing a path between freckles. Ignoring the way it makes Kyle squirm. "He's occupied with his own projects now, of course. A shame I never had him cut out all these little defects...what use is a protégé who cannot attain perfection, hm? What use are you, Fitzpatrick?"_

_Kyle bites his tongue until he tastes blood, and tells himself he's enjoying this. He has to be. He wants what makes Cohen happy. He wants this._

Rapture is falling.

*

 

The halls of Fort Frolic are eerily silent, their walls a tacky mess of faded posters and graffiti. Sometimes there are footsteps in the distance; sometimes there are screams. The Splicers are taking over.

 

Kyle moves quickly, clinging to the shadows, his eyes darting across the ceiling. The note is scrunched up in his fist, but by now he has its contents memorised.

 

_Meet by the tunnel to Poseidon Plaza at 7:30 sharp. Don't make me come find you, because I won't. I mean it. Be there, Kyle._

_-Silas_

He rounds the corner and sees them- all three of them, waiting by the tunnel entrance with varying degrees of impatience. Finnegan paces, Rodriguez twitches, and Cobb stands as still as a statue, his arms folded. "He'll be here," he's saying as Kyle makes his way up the stairs. "Just give him a few more minutes, we're early anyway."

 

"Early for _what_?" Kyle asks, and Finnegan turns on him with a snarl, reaching for Kyle's throat with frozen fingers.

 

"I'll teach you to sneak up on me, you fucking-"

 

Cobb grabs his shoulder and tugs him back before he can do any serious damage. "Calm down, Martin, Jesus. He ain't no Splicer."

 

"Can we _go_ now?" Rodriguez demands. He stands in the circular entrance, hands clenched by his sides. The shadows under his eyes are more pronounced than ever. "Cohen could get here at any second, and we're just standing around! Fucking hurry up, won't you?" He directs the last part at Kyle, standing still at the top of the stairs, well out of Finnegan's reach.

 

He doesn't really need them to explain. If their expressions weren't enough of a giveaway, Rodriguez would have said enough to make things clear. But he asks anyway. "What are you doing here? Are you leaving?"

 

"Didn't you _tell_ him?" Finnegan snaps.

 

"No time," Cobb says tersely. "Does it matter? He's here now, and that mad old bastard don't need to know about any of it."

 

"You're running away," Kyle says. He doesn't hide the accusation in his voice. "We're his _disciples_ , we're supposed to stay with him through thick and thin!" In the background, Rodriguez mumbles something that sounds like, "For fuck's sake". Kyle ignores him. "We're safer here with Mister Cohen than anywhere else in Rapture, you can't possibly think-"

 

"You're an idiot, Fitzpatrick," Rodriguez tells him. "'S people like you that die first, the ones who walk into the spider's parlour and think he's gonna offer them fucking tea and _cakes_. And you're so surprised when he starts eating you alive, you can't _believe_ he'd do that to you..." he trails off into silence, fumbling inside his jacket for the ubiquitous flask.

 

"Kyle," Cobb begins, "We'll explain on the other side, but you have to-"

 

"I'm not going anywhere! I belong with Cohen, wherever he is." But the certainty is fading from his voice. In the distance he can hear the pitter-patter of feet inside the walls and abandoned stores; water drips down from hairline cracks in every ceiling, and the lights flicker, when they work at all. This is not the Fort Frolic he knows. Not his home. And Cohen is not himself these days.

 

The tunnel is bright, seems safer than anything he's seen in a very long time. Could there be a way out? Is the rest of the city any better off than the Fort? Mister Cohen says not, but how could he possibly know?

 

Kyle meets Cobb's eyes and realises with a jolt that what he's seeing is fear. Silas Cobb is frightened. Rodriguez too, and even Finnegan, though he does a better job of hiding it. Terror, desperation; who drove them to this?

 

They're wrong. They must be. Kyle steps back, shaking his head mutely.

 

"We have to go," Finnegan snarls. "And I ain't dying over some stupid kid who can't see his goose is _cooked_. You're dead, Fitzpatrick. You stay, you die."

 

"It doesn't matter anyway," Rodriguez mumbles, one foot already across the entrance. "We all lied to ourselves; we're still lying now. He's as dead with us as with Cohen. Fuck me, I need a drink." He turns and starts down the tunnel without looking to see if the others are following.

 

Cobb grabs Kyle by the shoulders, shakes him until his teeth clack together and he tastes blood.

 

"Now you listen here. You just _listen_ , alright? Sander Cohen is crazy; he makes his art, and people die. Says there can't be art without sacrifice." There is no smile on his face this time, no dreamy cast to his eyes. The tips of his fingers burn white hot, singeing Kyle's shirt. "He's workin' his way up to some kind of masterpiece, something to trump all the rest of his art, something he thinks will make him immortal even after he's dead. And it's _us_ , kitten. We're his greatest works, and he can't never let us leave. So you come with me _right now_ , and we'll make our way out of Fort Frolic through one of the back routes in the Plaza. Cohen controls the Metro station, but he can't be everywhere. Come on, don't do this-" and then Finnegan is tugging him off an unresisting Kyle, dragging him towards the tunnel.

 

"Kid wants to die, that's all on him," he mutters. "Let him burn here. I don't care. We're getting out, Silas, I ain't waitin' no longer."

 

The door slides closed on Cobb's parting, "Hide yourself, alright? For god's sake, hide yourself 'til that _sick fuck_ dies in his cave; I'll come back for you later, when it's safe-". At the end, his eyes burn as wild as Cohen's, and for the first time Kyle finds himself shrinking from the expression. Cobb has to be mistaken. Those things he said can't possibly be true, because Cohen won't harm Kyle. He never has. He swore he never would.

 

A chuckle in the darkness, and the man himself slides out of the shadows. Kyle feels his heartbeat speed up; he can't restrain a flinch when Cohen wraps an arm about his shoulders. He aches where Cobb held him with burning fingers. When he checks later, he'll find his skin has blistered cruelly, and no amount of ice is enough to make the heat fade entirely.

 

"Look at them, poor dears, fleeing like little birds from a great big fox. So frightened. So _thoughtless_ ," and Cohen's tone changes all of a sudden. "So they think they can turn on me without consequences? After everything I did, everything I gave them...was there ever a sharper knife than betrayal? The deepest circle of hell is hardly enough, not for those who think they can turn their backs on _me_." His hand moves to the back of Kyle's neck, squeezing mercilessly.

 

"Let go," Kyle chokes, "I stayed, I'm not like them. Please!"

 

"I'm of a mind to skin them all like rabbits," Cohen continues. If he can feel Kyle shaking, he gives no sign of it. "String them up and watch them _twitch, twitch, twitch_ while I peel away their lovely pelts and hang them up to drip. Would you like that, Fitzpatrick? We could both have new coats for the start of the cold season. And maybe a pair of mittens for you; wouldn't do to let those lovely long fingers catch a chill. I need them for my masterpiece, after all."

 

His hand is a vice on Kyle's neck, turning him away from the door and marching him back down the corridor. Rambling as they walk, as if this is just another stroll, another lesson. Kyle bows his head and doesn't say a word. By the time they reach Cohen's Fleet Hall office, his cheeks are wet and his shoulders tremble. Still, he says nothing.

 

If he's quiet, if he does as Cohen says and obeys him, doesn't _disappoint_ him, then maybe Kyle will be allowed to live. He's no traitor. He didn't leave. Cohen wouldn't hurt him.

 

"They think they can burrow their way through my walls like little woodworms. _Vermin_. It doesn't do to let vermin live, young Fitzpatrick, remember that. They breed in the nooks and crannies. Before you know it, the city has fallen! All because you didn't practice proper pest control."

 

"I'll remember, Mister Cohen," Kyle mumbles.

 

The other man chuckles; a honeyed sound, a flash of old times past. "Of course you will. You do try so hard for me, don't you?" Without waiting for an answer, he turns to the panel of buttons before him. He can broadcast his voice all over Fort Frolic with this machine; Kyle's heard him do it when ticket sales were slow, or Cohen just fancied hearing his own voice echoing back at him. This time though, he doesn't bother with the charm.

 

"I know you hear me, you treacherous snakes. By now you'll have discovered that your precious escape routes are all blocked off. Have been for days, though of course you never checked. Such arrogance; from Silas it doesn't surprise me, and no doubt Hector is insensate as usual, but I expected better of _you_ , Martin. Such a shame." He reaches for another panel of buttons and selects one carefully. "Don't come crying to me when you realise the _severity_ of your situation; there is no place for turncoats under my wing."

 

He presses the button, and Kyle finds himself holding his breath. Waiting for...something, maybe for the earth to start shaking and the roof to collapse around their ears. It doesn't. Nothing seems to happen at all, except that Cohen's smile widens further, if that's possible. "Soon enough you'll find that you can no longer leave Poseidon Plaza. Oh, you won't accept it immediately. You'll wander for days, growing desperate and tired, because of course you are far from being the only residents there. I very much suspect the current tenants won't take kindly to your intrusion. I don't blame them, it _is_ very rude of you."

 

"What's going to happen to them?" Kyle breathes. He regrets the words as they leave his lips, but it's too late to take them back. And he wants to know. If the others are going to die, he wants to know how. When. Whether or not he'll be joining them.

 

"Hmm? Oh, who's to say. One can never truly know what a man will do in times of desperation. But I'd wager I could take a guess, if you'd like?"

 

"Tell me," Kyle says, and Cohen nods approvingly.

 

"Far be it from me to refuse a willing audience! But if it's a spectacle you're wanting, I will have to provide it elsewhere; those three just won't follow their scripts. Rodriguez will find some abandoned bar to hole up in, until the liquor runs dry and he is forced to relocate to another. Cobb will go back to his territory in that pathetic little store he insisted on keeping. He'll die there, no doubt. Such a waste. I do hope he has the decency to go mad first. Add a little _twist_ to the tale."

 

He sketches out this _twist_ with his hands and the empty air; maybe picturing Cobb's neck between his fingers. A tendency to violence; it's been there as long as Kyle can remember. But it can't have been a permanent fixture. There existed a time before it, or he would never have stayed so long. Gone so far, sunk so low. But he finds he can't recall it. If it did exist, it has long since been drowned.

 

"Finnegan shows promise," Cohen murmurs, and Kyle tries to keep his twitch unobtrusive.

 

"What?"

 

" _What_? Listen to yourself, you sound like a little pet parrot. _What? What?_ Didn't your owner teach you a proper song or two to pass the lonely nights with?"

 

Cohen's eyes glitter like many-faceted gemstones. Cracked. Flawed. And for the first time it occurs to Kyle that in gemstones this damage is irreparable. File them down to hide the irregularity and maybe they'll still be beautiful- but they'll be _less_ as well, and Cohen would call the process 'wasteful'. There is beauty in these cracks, he would insist.

 

There is beauty in his madness; even now, Kyle doesn't consider trying to run.

 

"I'm sorry, Mister Cohen," he says as meekly as he can. "I just wanted to know what you meant about Finnegan." Placated, Cohen turns back to his buttons.

 

"Always a fighter, that one. Life never gave him anything easily, and he has always started his performances in the expectation that he'd be booed off stage before the first intermission. Too caustic for public appearances offstage, of course. And one could never call him _elegant_. But he does have a certain rugged appeal...and he's the only one likely to fight his destiny. Yes. Yes, he's the one to watch, you mark my words. That one won't die as easily as the others."

 

 _Cobb promised he'd come back to rescue me_ , Kyle thinks. _And you promised I'd always be safe around you_. How frail those vows seem now. Now, he remembers a saying the drunks in Apollo's taverns had about promises. The only ones you can count on to be kept are death and taxes. The rest is _grift_ , as Rodriguez was always telling him. Too late now.

 

He wants to beg for life; list his accomplishments, his dreams and his plans. Let the others die, if it will only give him a few more years to play. There is so much he hasn't done yet. But he won't ask. Everything seems so much less relevant, so much more meaningless now he thinks about it properly. What has he really achieved? He wrote a few songs, entertained a few people. Made a few friends and abandoned them, and did the same to his mother. How long since he last thought about her?

 

It would serve him right if he was the first to die.

 

"What are you going to do now?" _To me?_ Kyle's voice shakes, a trace of vibrato breaking through the calm he wanted to project. He may deserve this, but that doesn't mean he can't be afraid of it. Fixing his eyes to one of the masks nailed to the wall (red and green and yellow, a bird's feathered head in pointlessly garish tones; it seems so ludicrously inappropriate in the here and now), he blinks quickly to clear his eyes.

 

Hands on his shoulders; Kyle tries not to flinch. And then Cohen is pulling him gently close, into an embrace that smells of greasepaint and plaster mix, alcohol and aftershave. All things he associates with better days, long hours filled with inspiration and Cohen's lessons, delivered in monologue while he sat at his easel and Kyle at the piano before him. Leaning into his chest is instinctive.

 

"There there," his mentor says gently. "It hurts, doesn't it? But we are artists, and it is not for us to tear at our hair and shut ourselves away to weep. We have an obligation to the Muses, _our_ muses, and they will not wait. From our pain we will create- immortality!"

 

Kyle can't make sense of his words, but as of late that isn't unusual. He reacts to the tone instead, and to the hand rubbing his back. They tell him to stay calm, work hard, be _good_. Everything will turn out alright if he does as Cohen wishes. After all, he stayed when the others left- he is Cohen's last remaining supporter, the only one who has never Doubted. That makes him unique. Safe. He takes a deep breath and lets some of the tension seep from his shoulders.

 

"This is where we met, is it not?" Cohen whispers into his hair. "What a day that was... The universe, she smiled on us both that day. Sometimes I look at you and I can almost hear her laughter. Shall we bring the joy back to this decrepit old shipwreck, Kyle?"

 

Kyle closes his eyes as a kiss is pressed to the top of his head. It's going to be alright. "Yes," he says without opening them. "Yes, of course, anything you want."

 

It turns out that what he wants is to sculpt. Not in marble or clay; these he dismisses as "commonplace" and "void of life", and Kyle should have understood his meaning long before he had it demonstrated to him. As it is, he is shocked, but not surprised.

 

They didn't have any marble anyway, but plaster comes in an endless supply, courtesy of one Doctor Suchong and his increasingly strange Plasmids. Maddened Splicers are even easier to source. In Cohen's hands, the two are a lethal combination.

 

(Days, weeks, maybe even months later, and Kyle kills a man without wires and lightning. His first. He doesn't particularly want to; the plaster is already creeping up the Splicer's chest, encasing him from the waist down and fusing him to the chair. He's not a threat to anyone. He _begs_ to die after a while, with Cohen's hands on either side of his head to make sure he doesn't ruin the pose before the plaster Plasmid can set.

 

"Stay _still_ ," Cohen snaps, and the Splicer gives an incoherent moan. His eyes dart to the other two completed works he shares a table with; the woman and the- the child, the little girl with her bowed head and folded hands. She, at least, wasn't alive when they posed her.

 

When Cohen hands Kyle a knife, he doesn't protest. He receives his orders and obeys them to the letter, though he cuts too clumsily and the blood makes his fingers slip before he can finish both wrists. Slow going; easier if he'd just cut their model's throat, or thrust the blade through his eye. But Cohen is very particular. Things must be just so; the girl's head bent at a certain angle, the woman's wrists tied a certain way. This much blood on the table, and no more.

 

Kyle obeys. He feels nothing these days. Almost nothing; sometimes they pass the sealed door to Poseidon Plaza in their wanderings around the Fort, and then he feels a stirring in his gut. Vague, nameless. Once he thinks he hears someone bang on the door and a name makes its way to his lips- _don't come yet, it's not safe yet/ it's not safe yet, come and save me anyway_ \- but he doesn't speak, and Cohen walks past without a word.)

 

Then one day there is a disturbance at the Metro station. Cohen won't tell him who it is, but the man's mood, volatile as always, undergoes a wild shift from irritated to exuberant in the space of minutes. He moves around his office in restless leaps and bounds, gesticulating wildly and hopping between topics seemingly at random. His masterpiece, the visitor, the mess he hasn't had time to tidy, Ryan's cruel abandonment of him...on and on, and Kyle waits. It's safer that way. Cohen is kind to an attentive audience.

 

"-such a strange young man, and such a _primal_ talent he seems to posses. I do like them talented. The things he could do with a little encouragement- the thought makes me go weak at the knees. Feel my pulse, Fitzpatrick! See how it flutters?"

 

"It does, sir," says Kyle. He lets go of Cohen's wrist as soon as he thinks he can get away with it; the man's skin burns, these days, fever-hot and strange in texture. More like leather than flesh. He cakes on the white greasepaint with increasing anxiety, fretting over the dwindling supply. Kyle hasn't seen his face without it since- sometime. He doesn't remember. The details of Cohen's natural features are starting to fade from his memory, and that in itself terrifies him. What happens when he thinks back and can only remember the white painted face? Teaching him, praising him, guiding him. _Fucking_ him; Kyle shies away from that the second it occurs from him, before the nausea becomes impossible to hide.

 

Cohen doesn't seem to notice anything wrong. Too busy with his visitor, whoever it is. Kyle finds he doesn't care. It's not one of the others. Cohen would have said by now.

 

"We'll have to test him, of course," Cohen announces, crossing the room in broad strides to fiddle with something on his desk. "I've spent a long time waiting, but it seems he's finally here! I think I'm coming over all faint from the excitement. Am I flushed, do you think? Too pale, perhaps? No matter. I'm sure he'll be gentle with me. But first, a proper welcome!"

 

He trails off into muttering, digging restlessly through the papers on his desk. Kyle wanders over to one of the masks on the wall and pretends to admire it. The bird again, with its blinding colours and overlong beak. He can't remember how long it's been here; maybe since that first day.

 

A flicker of red smoke at the corner of his vision, and suddenly Kyle feels Cohen's breath on the back of his neck. He doesn't turn. It's not unusual, and he knows the other man only does it to see if he'll jump.

 

"Do you remember our first meeting?" Cohen asks, and this time Kyle does shiver, if just a little. Yes, he remembers. Always will.

 

"I couldn't ever forget meeting you, Mister Cohen."

 

"Mm, of course not." Cohen touches his hair, pushing it this way and that before stroking the nape of his neck. It's easier to allow it if Kyle can't see him. Easier to pretend it's still him, and not the nightmare copy that took his place while no one was looking. "You played for me that day, I remember. Such a performance! Your mistakes tore at my heart, but your _passion_...oh, your passion made it all worthwhile. And so I say, encore! Get yourself to the piano and surpass all other performances. I've left you some music, and a little surprise...but how you'll laugh, once the punch line reveals itself! Go on. For me."

 

Cohen hasn't allowed him near the grand piano in _weeks_ , and Kyle turns to ask him what's going on- or tries to. He finds his neck held tight between Cohen's fingers; there is not time to protest that _it hurts_ before something stings him. Sharp and sudden, gone as quickly as it happened.

 

"Hush," Cohen murmurs in his ear. "Sleep now, dear Fitzpatrick. I'll have the stage set for when you wake, and then the real show will begin. We mustn't disappoint our audience. Viewers are so impatient these days..."

 

His voice continues in the background, but the words blur together, indistinct and empty of meaning. Gradually, the world fades away.

 

*

 

"No! No! No!" The scream is an accompaniment, soaring over the bass line his low sobs provide.

 

"Mister Cohen, please-"

 

"Silence!"

 

 _But that makes no sense_ , Kyle thinks dully as his hands find the keys again. _I can't play in silence, the two are mutually exclusive._ He wriggles in his seat, but it's as ineffective as it was the last time he tried, and the time before that. His legs don't move. There's no feeling left in them, and some distant part of him wonders how much damage Cohen caused before applying the plaster. What was done to him. Whether he'll ever walk again.

 

( _Help me, someone, I don't want to die_.)

 

"Allegro...Allegro!" As if the explosives alone weren't incentive enough, as if the fear didn't already make his fingers pitter-patter, charged with adrenaline. His shirt is soaked with sweat. It clings to his chest and back, but all Kyle can think is that he's grateful Cohen didn't make him play naked. And he might have done. He might just be mad enough. He fitted Kyle with the bird mask ("since you were so fond of it") and doesn't seem to care that it obstructs his vision. He can barely read the music in front of him.

 

His timing is off once again. In his defense, he's been playing ever since he woke up. Hours. Hours upon hours, and always the same tune. It's driving him mad. Is he even sane enough to feel the blast, if Cohen actually goes through with it?

 

( _Help me. I want to die._ )

 

There's nothing musical in Cohen's voice; the silk is shredded, the honey dribbled away, and all that's left is raw, bloody insanity. "Da, Da, Da, Da Da DA, presto...Presto!!! NO!! No!!!"

 

"I'm trying," Kyle shouts back. "Please!" He doesn't know what he's begging for anymore.

 

In the spaces between notes, he wonders at his predicament, and whether he could have changed it. Would he be better off on the other side of what is now a frozen tunnel, with the other three? Cohen tells him they've gone mad, each and every one of them. Says Rodriguez drinks and cries; Finnegan traps Splicers like flies in web and drains them for ADAM; Cobb sets fires and burns anything within reach. Madmen, and they've long since forgotten him. There'll be no rescue now.

 

"Once again, young Fitzpatrick." He plays. It makes no difference; he plays it wrong. And enough is enough.

 

( _Spare me/kill me, just let me go. Let me go. Let me rest._ )

 

Something snaps inside him. He's been fraying for a long, long time. "Oh Cohen, you _sick fuck_!!! Let me out of this-" They aren't his words; but then, he hasn't been himself for a very long time. There are pieces of Kyle scattered all over Fort Frolic these days, pieces people took without asking and carried away with them when they vanished from his life. Gone, all of them. He'd be bitter about it, if he wasn't so certain that he'd brought it all on himself.

 

It's funny, in a way.

 

 _ **Detonation**_

 

It barely hurts at all.

 

(Cohen's voice drones on in the darkness. "See young Fitzpatrick here on the stage. Use your camera, take him as he is now...so I may remember him...")

 

Eventually, even Sander Cohen fades into obscurity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title to this story is a reference to the piece Fitzpatrick is playing when Jack finds him, otherwise known as _Cohen's Scherzo_. That, and the fact that _scherzo_ means 'joke'. Shame nobody pointed that one out to Kyle Fitzpatrick.

**Author's Note:**

> Tags/warnings will update as chapters go up. Originally started for a kink meme prompt, but it got a bit...out of hand. As these things tend to do. :/


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